This Mad Season
by Dizzy-Dreamer
Summary: I come undone in this mad season. [MacStella][ficalbum challenge on Livejournal] [Fic three up, 01 October Crutch]
1. Angry

_I'm not angry but I've never been above it,_

_You see through me don't you?_

Five years ago today, and he never expects it to be so hard. Five years ago, and he doesn't think at all, doesn't even feel; doesn't know the rain as it soaks him to the skin. He doesn't know her hand on his shoulder, doesn't hear her gasp or her choked sobs.

(Five years ago he was standing by the river, staring at the skyline: staring at his wife's death.)

He's by the river now; the skyline still looks empty but there are no flames licking the sky, no smoke blanketing the city. His eyes are dark, his fists are clenched, resting on the barrier between him and the edge of the bank.

She stands seven feet behind him, her hands pushed deep into the pockets of her coat. She can see her breath; she can't feel her toes. He needs her here, she knows, but she doesn't speak and neither does he. She's tactful, he's stubborn: that's how they've always been. He was angry; she was sorry; she was scared, she remembers now - she doesn't admit it.

He was angry, and he'd yelled, angry that he was helpless, angry that he couldn't _breathe_ with all this fucking smoke, angry that his fucking wife was killed by fucking terrorists. He'd trashed his living room that night.

Five years later and she's still tactful, he's still stubborn; he's not angry anymore. Not angry, he says, just tired, tired of it all.

She knows he's still scared.


	2. Black and White People

Fic two for the _ficalbum_ challenge. I don't own the characters or the lyrics, much as I'd love to. Beta'd by **delgaserasca**, thank you. 

* * *

Black and White People 

--- 

_He's pushed down so hard you can hear him start to sink_

--- 

You eye him discreetly as you push buttons on the mass spectrometer; he's engrossed in his work, eye to the microscope. He looks tense, more so than usual; he sits rigidly, shoulders stiff, gloved hands pressing against the counter. He takes deep breaths; you wonder if he's composing himself or trying to stay calm.

It can't be easy for him. You know it's not; you were there – that night by the river, the night in your apartment, that other night in his. Those weeks he couldn't go home and he slept on your sofa. It's only been five years, but to him it seems like a lifetime. You feel sick when you see the skyline but you're getting better; he doesn't tremble with repressed anger anymore.

You hear exhaustion in his voice when he calls your name; his eyes are closing slowly. You turn off the light over the microscope, and guide him out of the lab. You walk him to his office, slide off his lab coat and hand him his suit jacket, all the while lecturing him. You send him home; you calculate quickly, and you realise that the last time he got any decent sleep was over ten days ago.

He's a tortured man, you know, he knows; you want desperately for there to be something you can do before you lose him altogether.


	3. Crutch

Um... third installment. And I'm sorry it's taken so long, and I'm also sorry that the next few chapters are going to take a while. My CSI: NY muse is, for lack of a better term, dead right now. Uh... song is _Crutch_ by Matchbox Twenty (from the album _Mad Season_); with thanks to **delgaserasca** for the beta.**  
**

* * *

**CRUTCH.**  
_---  
Dig a little deeper and you'll realize:  
All I'm building up, you're tearing down.  
---_

_Dig deeper_, he urges, a hint of sarcasm, a wry smile threatening to upturn his lips. She's standing before his desk, yelling; he loves the sound of her voice, she tells him to get over himself, to leave his office once in a blue moon, perhaps he'll see that there's still semi-intelligent life outside of the four walls.

She's exhausted, he would be too, after working a week of double shifts; he's not entire sure she's completely sober, either. There are walls he builds up, she tells him, and they close him off from the world, the world that _didn't end_, the world that is _still evolving_. He's stubborn; she continues her tirade, throwing her arms out in wild gestures.

He feels himself beginning to slip; slowly, he stands, lifts his coat from the hook in the wall and flicks off the light, stepping around her.

_Dig deeper_, he urges. _The walls are made for you to break_.


End file.
